Not long ago, student housing was lit-tle more than an afterthought in the big push to get admitted to a dream school. On their Web sites and in their brochures, colleges made only a cursory mention of their accommodations and amenities. Campus tours raced through a “typical” freshman dorm or omitted that part of the tour. And no wonder. Choices for freshmen were limited. Most lived in cramped double- or triple-bunked rooms.
In the last few years, though, colleges have begun reformulating campus life, helping students get the most out of their first year. There’s a certain competitive pressure. With parents paying top dollar for tuition and housing, living conditions matter more than ever. “I don’t think students make their decision about schools based on housing,” says Michael Muska, college counselor for Poly Prep Country Day School, a private school in Brooklyn. “But if it’s between two schools,” the one with the nice dorms wins.
Many schools, like Emory, are already using computer roommate selection. But if your school of choice doesn’t, don’t panic. The old-fashioned method can work fine. University of Pennsylvania sophomore Susan Sapega answered three questions: Do you smoke? Are you an early riser? And do you keep kosher? Against the odds, housing officials came up with three compatible suite mates. “I lucked out. We all got along just fine,” says Sapega. Computer selection, though, can take some of the tension out of orientation week. It works, says Kevin Sessions, vice president of WebRoomz, a roommate-matching service, because no one has a stronger interest in creating a solid partnership than people who will be sharing laundry soap and debating lights-out times. Rollins agrees. “It took a lot of the anxiety out of it,” he says. He’ll be sharing his room with a fellow Red Sox fan.
For many incoming students, sharing a bedroom with one or even two classmates–and a bathroom with 20–can be an unwanted strain, especially if you’ve grown up with your own private bedroom and bath. Increasingly, schools are offering new fresh–men more privacy. Boston University has added a tower of suites overlooking the Charles River. (The great views will cost you, though. BU charges an additional $3, 520 on top of the usual $6, 180 annual housing fee.) Don’t be too quick to jettison the idea of a roommate, however. If you tend to be shy, says Gary Schwarzmueller, director of the Association of College and University Housing Officers, “having a roommate can really help keep you from getting isolated.”
While many schools have improved dorm amenities by adding coffee bars and high-speed Internet connections, a few seem to be taking cues from Club Med. Ohio State University is spending $140 million to build a 605,000-square-foot sports complex complete with kayak-rental service, batting cages and a climbing wall so big that 50 students can scale it simultaneously. Indiana University of Pennsylvania built a room-size golf simulator, where students can play at any one of 52 courses from around the world. Luxuries? Depends on whom you ask. Administrators say that dazzling new sports and fitness facilities help improve student retention–and make a positive contribution to student life beyond the traditional keg party.
Not all the dramatic changes in student life involve climbing walls and batting cages. Many schools are reorganizing freshman dorms to enhance, rather than distract from, academic life. Too often, says Cornell’s vice provost Isaac Kramnick, students used to return from class at the end of the day to “intellectual-free zones”–the dormitory. To combat the “4:30 curtain,” as Kramnick calls it, Cornell moved all 3,200 freshmen into the north end of the campus in dorms that each have a faculty member in residence and classroom space. Freshmen take meals together in two specially designated dining halls where professors lead weekly discussions. Cornell also erected a student center inside an old dorm, where freshmen can attend writing seminars and lectures, schedule advisory sessions and sip lattes with teaching assistants and professors. The program has worked so well that Cornell has begun re-organizing housing for upperclassmen.
At many schools, students pick housemates based on common interests. Twenty of Lafayette College’s most serious students live together in McKelvy House, a 19th-century mansion on the Easton, Pa., campus that has been designated for “intellectual discourse.” McKelvy’s faculty-in-residence? A philosophy professor, of course. When University of Maryland, Baltimore County, junior and volunteer firefighter Jonathan Bratt heard about the school’s Emergency Health Services house, he didn’t hesitate. Bratt hopes to work in homeland security when he graduates. Meanwhile, EHS allows him to live with 31 other students training to be first responders. They eat together and study together, and have formed a paramedic squad that patrols campus events on bikes. EHS students, says Bratt, are closer than any fraternity “because although we have different goals, we speak the same language.” Many schools have substance-free dorms. At the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, students and their guests in the “wellness dorm” sign agreements not to enter the house if they have alcohol in their system.
No matter whom you end up rooming with, adaptability is critical. The summer before he started at Stanford University, David Herbert, a white private-school grad from New York City, worried he wouldn’t have much in common with Jarret Guajardo, a mixed-race former public schooler from Nevada. But on moving day, he says, “we realized we’d been separated at birth.” Movies, music, academic goals: they shared them all. This year, Herbert and Guajardo will be roommates again. What seemed like a random assignment turned out to be the start of a beautiful friendship.
